• Assessor - Farm Animal Welfare
• Casual contract, $40-50 per hour, 20-38 hours/week anticipated
• Extensive travel within Australia conducting assessments of farms and abattoirs
• Front line role representing RSPCA Australia
• Several vacant positions

The Role

Our Assessors share the animal welfare values and ethics of the RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme and are experienced farmers or audit/compliance professionals.

This role reports to the Manager - RSPCA Australia Certification Body and is integral to the operations of the Certification Body, which sits within the Scheme and conducts all assessment and certification processes of participants seeking RSPCA Approved certification.

The Certification Body office is located in the ACT and our certification team, that coordinate assessments and administer the certification process, works from here. Our Assessors are based in all states and operate from their own home-office but travel extensively and work across the country.

Our Assessors conduct assessments at farms and abattoirs to evaluate conformance with the requirements of RSPCA Standards in accordance with the Certification Body’s quality procedures. At the conclusion of an assessment the Assessor documents their findings through the production of an assessment report that contributes to the decision on the certification of the facility. The majority of assessments are conducted as part of our Poultry programs but Assessors with relevant expertise or interest also work on our Pig or Atlantic Salmon programs.

The Person

To be successful in this role you should have commercial livestock production experience at management, technical or quality assurance levels, or have demonstrated competency in auditing, farm assurance, quality assurance, or similar fields.

You should have excellent relationship and stakeholder skills and a demonstrated focus on your own continual professional development. The successful applicant must be able to travel extensively for work purposes for extended periods and be resilient, and ready to take initiative and focus on objectives and delivery in the face of changing demands and conditions.

You should be proficient in the use of Microsoft Office products, in particular Outlook and the Teams environment and have the ability to quickly learn new programs.

Our Assessors work largely independently and to be successful in this role you must be self-reliant, be able to administer and plan your own workload, and have strength of character that allows you to act responsibly even though these actions may not always be popular.

In return, our Assessors are trained extensively, provided great opportunity for professional development, and supported in their day-to-day work by our Senior Assessor, our Canberra-based certification team and Assessor colleagues.

About RSPCA Australia

RSPCA Australia, as the federation’s national body, is a leading source of animal welfare science, and works with governments and industries to progress animal welfare across a range of issues. In addition, RSPCA Australia runs the RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme, which works with farmers and brands to improve the lives of millions of farm animals.

The RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme is Australia’s leading farm animal welfare certification program. We work closely with farmers to make a positive impact on the lives of farm animals by setting higher welfare Standards for Producers to achieve, which we verify through our robust assessment and certification process. Millions of hens, pigs, chickens, turkeys and salmon benefit each year from better farm conditions as a result of the work we do.

The RSPCA Certification Body sits within the Scheme and is responsible for assessment and certification activities for each of the Scheme’s Programs that includes conducting over 1200 assessments each year in all parts of the country.

Benefits of Working with RSPCA Australia

As you might expect, RSPCA is an organisation of people committed to Animal Welfare and this flows through into the type of workplace we all work hard to create – one that is supportive, challenging and friendly – and one driven by strong values of fairness and inclusion. We work hard to protect animals and meet the needs of our clients, but we don’t put unreasonable pressure on ourselves to meet meaningless demands or targets. We are a nice group of people, driven by our values and we think we are a great place to spend your working week.

Whilst the Assessor role is remote based the majority of the time, we’re committed to bringing the whole team together twice a year for training, recalibration and team bonding. As part of the onboarding for an Assessor the successful applicant will spend several weeks in training with the Manager – Certification Body and also shadow other assessments.

Further Information

You don’t need to talk to the Contact Officer to apply for this role, but if you have specific questions that are not covered by the information above, call Rick Butler on our general office number or send an email to [email protected] using the subject line: Assessor - Farm Animal Welfare enquiry via EthicalJobs.

For further information regarding RSPCA Australia go to www.rspca.org.au and for further information regarding RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme go to www.rspcapproved.org.au.